


taking the roundabout route

by sakasamasa



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Violence, edit: warning im tagging this ardynoct but it aint healthy babey, hurt noct, warning: slightly ardynoct
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 20:31:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16899399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakasamasa/pseuds/sakasamasa
Summary: Noctis comes dangerously close to prematurely sealing his fate in Zegnautus Keep until help arrives from an unexpected source in an unexpected way.





	taking the roundabout route

**Author's Note:**

> weird headspace writing turned into a slightly more coherent, thirsty one-shot. If I do need to tag this M/M or change the rating, PLEASE let me know. Wouldn't want anyone reading something they thought would be something else lmao

_No. No. Oh, Gods no._

Noctis looked down in horror as the hilt of a dagger stuck out of his body. His mind failed to register any sensation before the MT gripped it tighter and pulled it out with one harsh tug, and then he was back in the heat of the moment. He reeled, pulled forward by the blade and then back by his instincts but kept standing by some unearthly force. The MT would’ve hit its mark again if he hadn’t cast Holy, the magical glow illuminating gleaming steel like headlights flitting by dangerously close to his head. The MT staggered, just long enough for him to summon his father’s sword and strike it down. He buried it deeply into the wiring between the metal plating, the screeching of the tearing chassis filling the air as though they were death throes. The MT crumpled, dropping to the ground like the lifeless mechanical heap it had become. Its weight clanged and echoed through the desolate Keep, fading into an awful silence.  
  
Through the silence, through the buzzing in his head, Noctis realised it very well could’ve sliced his throat wide open if he hadn’t reacted fast enough. He couldn’t, however, consider himself fortunate as he felt a cold heat pool and spill out in his gut. For a moment he considered not looking. He considered that if he didn’t see the damage, it wouldn’t actually be there. With hesitant eyes he forced himself to look down, and he was greeted by something so horrible he couldn’t believe it was real. His father’s sword fell from his hand, the clatter far-off and muffled.

“No, no, no,” he heard himself lament, biting back a miserable sob.

_This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening._

Like a mantra the words revolved in the silence, growing loud and frantic as the numbness of shock started to fade. The gravity of the situation truly took a devastating hold when he fully realised he had no curatives left. He took a heaving breath, and then another as he watched the blood shimmer in the dark fabric of his shirt as his body moved. The icy heat spread from his side to his limbs. He stood there, simply waiting for the pain to set in until a single thought spurred him into action. It was the notion that he could survive this. He willed his chilled body to move, to keep going and find a curative. Move. Survive and meet up with the others, find Prompto, reach the Crystal and put an end to all of this. It couldn’t end here.

It only took three steps for that faith in survival to take a nosedive as his knees buckled under the weight of the encroaching pain. Falling burned unlike anything he’d ever felt before, the earlier cold overshadowed. He put a hand to his wound, feeling his fingertips being wetted by his own warm blood. The dread returned in waves, triumphing over his most earnest attempts to tell himself that _it’s okay, he could still make it_. Despite it, he decided to stumble over to the nearest surface he could lean on. He needed to keep going. The wall to his right was all smooth, polished plating with nowhere to find purchase. Still, it kept him upright, albeit on shaking legs. The hallway that stretched out before him suddenly seemed impossibly long, and he bit back another frustrated sob. Every step felt like too much, like dragging along dead weight threatening to pull him under. At the same time his mind urged him. Survive. You need to survive. For Prompto. For Gladio and Ignis and Luna and his father. He needed to survive so he could throttle Ardyn with his bare hands, strangle the immortality right out of him and reduce his cursed being to ashes. The world would be a better place for it, surely. Lost in thought, he only belatedly realised he hadn’t progressed at all. He couldn’t will his body to struggle and persevere as his mind did. He watched blood drip down from his fingers and the sinking feeling of his failure pulling him to the ground. He felt sweat drip down his face and the frigid air against his too hot skin. Survive, the Gods themselves seemed to say. It all seemed like a silly joke. Noctis closed his eyes.

 

—/—

 

He bit back a cry as he was none too gently shoved to the wall. The impact coursed through him, stabbing through the bleeding hole in his gut. The warm, damp heat of his back collided harshly with the icy cold steel behind him, sending a tremor through his already shaking body. Ardyn looked nonplused as he settled before him, a disapproving gaze flitting over the gaping wound and the bloodied fingers splayed across it. Noctis felt his breathing become less flurried over time, even when his heart seemed to thrash harder in his chest now that he was face to face with _him_. The epicentre and orchestrator of all the pain and hardship and Six knows what other evil the man had committed. For a few tense seconds, it was just that. Being quietly appraised while he fretfully waited for the other to either speak or strike him down where he sat. Ardyn did neither.

Instead, he reached out, a gloved hand nearing the wound before Noctis shoved it away with a growl. In hindsight, the motion wasn’t worth the ensuing pain that erupted in his side. Wet heat pooled and dripped from the gaps of his fingers, seeping further into the fabric of his shirt. The other looked somewhat amused by it all.

“Now, now,” Ardyn held up a hand in feigned innocence, “don’t make a fuss.”

“Fuck you,” Noctis spat. He wouldn’t play along with the other’s games, not so far down the line. If he wasn’t bleeding out at an alarming rate, he would have ran his father’s blade cleanly through the man’s chest already, if only to cut short any wordy jab he had in store. But stasis and marrow-deep exhaustion planted themselves firmly between what he desperately wanted and what he simply didn’t have. His waning strength added to the frustration of seeing his father’s sword scattered to the floor beside an unmoving MT just paces away. The MT that had managed, despite everything, to rail its jagged dagger in and out of him in a shaved second of carelessness. It hadn’t managed to stab him a second time, but if the resulting wound was left untended it might not have needed to.

“Really,” Ardyn sighed, “Noct, you-“

“You-“ Noctis hissed as another stab shot through his side, but he continued through gritted teeth, “-don’t fucking get to call me that.”

He felt some useless sense of triumph when he saw the other’s gaze darken, but that quickly disappeared when Ardyn closed in, deftly pulling Noctis’ wet hand from the wound and pressing his own to it, hard. He couldn’t bite back a scream as pure and agonising pain flared up and outwards from the pressure. When Noctis opened his eyes he saw stars scattering in his vision, dimming the glint in the other’s eyes that were wide, crazed and hungry even as the rest of his features betrayed nothing. He racked up air like he’d been close to drowning when Ardyn pulled his hand away.  
  
“I do hope you realise your current disposition,” Ardyn said with a tone of voice too collected for the near animalistic elation in his gaze. “It’s in your best interest not to try my patience. You’ve caused enough trouble for me as is.”

Noctis could laugh at that, and he did. Even if it was a watery and mean-spirited mockery of real, genuine laughter, it was enough to give the other pause and the questioning quirk of a brow. He let the vindictive smile cling to his features as he challengingly raised his head to meet the other head-on.

“You fucking monster. I don’t owe you shit.”

Ardyn pressed harder into the wound in response, unheeding of the way Noctis reeled in his spot. Another cry of pain resounded through the hallway, and through the haze of agony Noctis could hardly recognise it as his own. It burned, and it kept burning hotter when Ardyn’s hand started to sear into his flesh. The pain was too much. Hurting like this was too much.

“Fuck- Stop!” Noctis found himself gasping out the words, “Stop, fucking stop!”

“What was that?” The pressure didn’t let up, and through the blur of tears and harrowing, heated sensation Noctis saw that same hateful amber looking straight at him.

“Stop! Stop, please, it hurts!”

Ardyn’s hand finally lifted, black leather coated in gleaming red. The throbbing heat remained, but it lessened with every harsh and shuddering breath cut off by choked out sobs. The metallic tinge of his own fresh blood in the air seeped into his nose and onto his tongue, settling so thickly it made him nauseous. Every other lungful made it worse. Molten amber bore into him as he regained an awareness that wasn’t coated in mind-numbing pain, watching him with thinly veiled delight. It was obvious the man was getting some sort of twisted satisfaction from this. Watching him hurt. The nausea grew stifling.

“Good boy,” Ardyn hummed, using bloodied fingers to push aside the bangs sticking to his forehead. Then he moved to wipe away the tears that had unwillingly spilled from his eyes. It was mortifying and infuriating, but Noctis begrudgingly knew better than to retaliate again. His blood still boiled from the anger and the pain all the same, and for what it was worth, he made that known with a glare he hoped would return the other’s apparent hatred for him tenfold. Ardyn merely smiled, thin-lipped and joyless.

“Now,” he started, his voice low and deceptively honeyed, “as much as I’d love to watch you bleed out and die a slow, agonising death right here, I’m afraid I still need you alive.”

Noctis sucked in a shuddering breath of air, sharp iron creeping all the way down his throat.

He dared to ask, “Why?”

The word was left to hang in the silence before Ardyn continued.

“All in due time, Your Majesty. You want to find your friends, no?”

He didn’t wait for an answer as his gaze dropped. Noctis watched him keenly while he casually rummaged through the inside of his coat, pulling out a glowing flask soon after.

“Hold still now. You’ll make this a lot harder on the both of us if you try to resist again.”

Noctis dumbly regarded the potion in the other’s hand, confused and then emitting another pained gasp as Ardyn unceremoniously tugged up his bloodied shirt to reveal the wound. It looked ghastly, but the horror of it all wasn’t something he had the luxury to focus on. His first instinct was to lash out again, but he stilled and forced himself to stay as he was, watching the flask shimmer and then shatter. The healing mist gathered in Ardyn’s hand, flowing with its motions as the hand was brought to hover above the deep gash. The potion began to work. Noctis couldn’t help but make a keening sort of noise as he felt his flesh being knitted together uncomfortably fast, the burning softening to a heated numbness. Soon enough, the worst of the pain started to ebb away as well. Other sensations intensified in its place. The hum of familiar magic, the sound of his beating heart in his ears and the chill of cold sweat on his skin. The heightened feeling of Ardyn’s proximity sent icy shivers up and down his spine. The solitude became that much more apparent, and the hallway became even more desolate in their shared presence. After the literal torture at the man’s hands, Noctis felt anything but comforted by the sudden façade of care. It was out of necessity, he knew. He knew Ardyn would much rather choke the life out of him, and he knew he very well could. He didn’t. Somehow, the mirage of kindness was more distressing than the open hostility. He wouldn’t fall for it. He wouldn’t let his guard down.

“There.”

The word snapped him out of a hazy trance, and he blinked to see Ardyn admiring his handiwork before his eyes travelled back up to meet his. They were no longer filled with hatred. He wouldn’t fall for it. He wouldn’t. And yet.

There was a moment of hesitation. Then he reached over, firmly taking hold of thick dark fabric of the other’s coat arm and feeling the solidity of his wrist underneath.

From his lips it tumbled. “Wait.”

Ardyn halted accordingly, amber narrowing to slits. It made Noctis afraid he was going to be hurt again, so he hastily started to speak.

“I- This- there’s more to this, isn’t there? To all of this…”

The man looked pensive for a moment, and then he scoffed, a ghost of laughter in his tone. Noctis felt fear coiling in him as Ardyn reached for his throat, soon overcome by bewilderment as the other did little but take a gentle hold of his neck, fingers curling carefully around the back. Another wave of shivers raked down his spine at the contact.

Ardyn spoke, sounding somewhat distant.

“Keeping their exalted champion in the dark, unaware of his fate. The Gods don’t ever change, do they?”  
  
The words didn’t sound like they were directed at him at all, nor did they sound like they awaited an answer. A thumb pressed into his adam’s apple, not nearly hard enough to hurt but enough to make him aware of his every breath.

“You will be so much more, Noctis.”

The grip at his neck tightened and the danger returned. Suddenly Ardyn was closer, the red of his hair filling his vision and blocking out everything else. Burning amber looked down at him, the icy animosity back as though it had never left. The pressure grew smothering, his airways constricted.

“Don’t fail again.” His voice was a low rumble, one Noctis could almost feel reverberate through the hand at his neck.

A blink, and then Ardyn was nowhere to be seen, his presence lingering in the tingling of his throat and the ache of his wound long after he was gone. At the end of the hallway he heard the telltale hiss of a door opening somewhere around the corner, the dim floor-lights growing brighter as if to goad him on. _Get moving_ , they seemed to say. Noctis gave a strained huff of laughter to no-one in particular. He fixed his shirt and dismissed his father’s blade back into the Armiger. When he pulled himself to his feet the strain stung warmly, but he supposed it was better than walking around with a hole in his gut. With careful steps trailing deep exhaustion, he began walking towards the light. If he heeded Ardyn’s words, it wasn’t so much for his as it was for his own sake. He needed to survive and find his friends. He wouldn’t fail.

The light beckoned, and somewhere deeper within the snaking labyrinth of Zegnautus Keep, Ardyn waited for him.


End file.
